Whether we like it or not, this is an endeavour carried out in the public eye. Therefore the public will, when it's given an opportunity, comment upon it. Strava is such an opportunity and, just like any other part of the Internet, some of the commentary will be unpleasant or even abusive. Sadly, that's the way it is. Strava is unmoderated, as far as I can tell, so there's no filter for the bad stuff. Nevertheless, most of the comments are positive.
ESL makes the point that this is largely a YACF-backed venture. Certainly, it started as such, but I think it went well beyond that quite rapidly. I've no idea what proportion of Steve's financial support comes from YACF regulars now, but the early days of the attempt got quite a lot of publicity which alerted the wider public to the venture and hopefully resulted in a wider source of income. That in itself is a good reason for upping the game re publicity, unless Steve feels that he'd rather the whole thing remained an in-house YACF project. I'd be surprised if that were the case.